You PM me your email address and I submit it to DB--they email you an invite to sign up for a free DropBox account, you put their (relatively lightweight and unobtrusive) program on your PC, including a little hard drive space for a subdirectory where you put files to be mirrored on their site, if there are any you want to put there.

You get more free space than if you went straight to them and I get some more free space added to my account.

I added the 540040c image with WinMFS and I thought everything was great. It booted up and allowed me to connect to the network and download everything. TV was on and running and I could pause and rewind live TV. BUT- it will not allow me to RECORD. It tells me there is a hardware problem and to reboot (which I did several times). So I dropped the image on another hdd and still the same the problem. Is there any other steps I need to do? I have lifetime service.

I added the 540040c image with WinMFS and I thought everything was great. It booted up and allowed me to connect to the network and download everything. TV was on and running and I could pause and rewind live TV. BUT- it will not allow me to RECORD. It tells me there is a hardware problem and to reboot (which I did several times). So I dropped the image on another hdd and still the same the problem. Is there any other steps I need to do? I have lifetime service.

I added the 540040c image with WinMFS and I thought everything was great. It booted up and allowed me to connect to the network and download everything. TV was on and running and I could pause and rewind live TV. BUT- it will not allow me to RECORD. It tells me there is a hardware problem and to reboot (which I did several times). So I dropped the image on another hdd and still the same the problem. Is there any other steps I need to do? I have lifetime service.

The short answer is do a C&DE and then go through Guided Setup again.

The long answer is that each TiVo has a unique TiVo Service Number "burned" into a chip on the motherboard.

When the TiVo contacts the TiVo, Inc. servers for guide data and stuff, it reports that number and the servers check it against a database of which number has what account status and reports that info back to the TiVo.

Also, when you record, your recordings are tied to that number, so you couldn't take a drive out of your 540, pop in someone else's 540, and watch your shows, or stick their drive in your 540 and watch their shows.

So, in addition to being on the motherboard, the TSN is also recorded on the hard drive, and when you make an image file, that's included.

When you restore that image to a different drive and put that drive in a different TiVo, there's a mismatch between the TSN on the drive and the TSN on the motherboard, and playback and recording are not going to be allowed until that mismatch is cleared up.

Thanks everyone for all your help. Unitron- I really appreciate it.
C&DE worked. I thought I had already done that, but I remembered that the process was taking so long that I pulled the plug (because on that particular hdd dating back to 2002 it had just started failing S.M.A.R.T. tests) and I thought that might be the problem. I forgot to run the C&DE on the healthy drive (circa 2004 -lol).

After doing the C&DE with a healthy drive- everything worked fine and just for ****s and giggles I made a backup image of that and dropped it on my failing drive. What little life is left in it- it still works too (for now).

I'm a bit surprised that the C&DE process takes an hour or more. The image is only 250 MB and the drive was completely empty. I'm guessing "clean up" is not exactly what's going on, but rather it's encrypting the drive system (tying the Service Number, TSN, etc.).

Whatever- it works great again. I'm happy. It's still a merry Christmas. And although it doesn't matter because I just ordered FIOS and I have an HDHomerun I just recently setup- this was more of a tinkering project so I could prove I win (and I suppose to have it working even though it will probably be shoved in the back of my technology graveyard closet). There’s just no dignity in Standard Def –lol.

I really need the same image for a TCD746320.
Started getting S03 error (over and over) so I tried the Kickstart 57. Now I am stuck in a reboot loop.

Any chance you can help me out, ggieseke?

Jeff

ggieseke,

I would like to get a copy of the image for the TCD746320 as well. Tried a drive upgrade form 320 to 2TB because my WD DVR extender started going wonky. The new drive is causing random reboots, and when I put the old one back in, the opening animations are gone, and there are reboots as well when going through the menus.

Tivo had me replace the cablecard, and is telling me the hard drive is dying...but it worked fine until the WD DVR extender started to go wonky. I'm thinking when I "divorced" the extender from the old drive, it corrupted the software (and that corruption got transferred to the new drive as well.

Tivo wants to sell me a refurbished Premier for $150. The unit is less than two years old, and cost me $400 for the lifetime service and $150 for the unit.

I would like to get a copy of the image for the TCD746320 as well. Tried a drive upgrade form 320 to 2TB because my WD DVR extender started going wonky. The new drive is causing random reboots, and when I put the old one back in, the opening animations are gone, and there are reboots as well when going through the menus.

Tivo had me replace the cablecard, and is telling me the hard drive is dying...but it worked fine until the WD DVR extender started to go wonky. I'm thinking when I "divorced" the extender from the old drive, it corrupted the software (and that corruption got transferred to the new drive as well.

Tivo wants to sell me a refurbished Premier for $150. The unit is less than two years old, and cost me $400 for the lifetime service and $150 for the unit.

Can anyone please help with an original image for model TCD130040 to be used with winmfs restore? I had a 1TB drive that was failing. I was able to use winmfs to create a truncated backup, but winmfs will not allow me to restore it to a 320GB drive I have (because my backup came from a larger drive). Thanks!

Can anyone please help with an original image for model TCD130040 to be used with winmfs restore? I had a 1TB drive that was failing. I was able to use winmfs to create a truncated backup, but winmfs will not allow me to restore it to a 320GB drive I have (because my backup came from a larger drive). Thanks!

Supposedly the 130 and 230 images are interchangeable with each other, so if you can find a 230 image, that might work.

(the 140 and 240 images are also supposed to be interchangeable with each other but the '30 and '40 images are not compatible with each other)

But WinMFS (or for that matter the MFS Live cd v1.4) should have made a backup from that 1TB that only needs a drive as large as the one from which the image on the 1TB originally came (which would have been a 40GB, although if the original drive was a Maxtor it might have had an LBA number a little bigger than WD and Seagate 40GB drives from that same era), so there's something else going on here.

I tried doing a restore from WinMFS and it seems to go ok, but right at the end it crashes with a message about trying to expand the drive. After that I cannot even select that drive in WinMFS without it crashing. The only way I could get WinMFS to be able to select the drive again was to create a Windows partition on it. Tried restarting the computer, unplugging the drive, etc. Thanks.

I tried doing a restore from WinMFS and it seems to go ok, but right at the end it crashes with a message about trying to expand the drive. After that I cannot even select that drive in WinMFS without it crashing. The only way I could get WinMFS to be able to select the drive again was to create a Windows partition on it. Tried restarting the computer, unplugging the drive, etc. Thanks.

What brand and model is that 320GB drive?

Do you have a bootable copy of the MFS Live cd v1.4?

Do you have a bootable copy of the Ultimate Boot cd?

We need to run the manufacturer's own diagnostics on that 320, and then, in a situation where we know that we are doing it to that drive and only that drive, overwrite it with zeros (erase it, so to speak), at least for the first few thousand sectors.

WinMFS should only bring up the question of expanding after a successful restoration, and only then by telling you that you have extra space and offering to expand.

You should turn down that offer, by the way, because sometimes it doesn't work, even if it seems it did.

Once you verify the restoration, you can go back and do the expansion as a separate step.

Here is the info on the drive: WD Caviar SE WD3200JB. It was an external drive I had lying around and has been working fine. I do not have a bootable copy of MFS Live cd v1.4 but I guess I could download one and make it? Same for the Ultimate Boot cd? I didn't really want to buy a new disk for this TiVo as it is tough to find PATA drives and this thing is now reaching it's 12th year of service! But since it has a lifetime on it, figured why not try to extend it a bit more if I can. I do have 3 other newer TiVo's in my home also. Thank you for your help!

Here is the info on the drive: WD Caviar SE WD3200JB. It was an external drive I had lying around and has been working fine. I do not have a bootable copy of MFS Live cd v1.4 but I guess I could download one and make it? Same for the Ultimate Boot cd? I didn't really want to buy a new disk for this TiVo as it is tough to find PATA drives and this thing is now reaching it's 12th year of service! But since it has a lifetime on it, figured why not try to extend it a bit more if I can. I do have 3 other newer TiVo's in my home also. Thank you for your help!

where it says Mirror Sites, and over on the left where it says ISO, click on one of the drive icons (they're really old icons from the early days of drives) to download the .iso file which is an image of the UBCD.

Then you have to burn it to cd-r "as an image", so that the right parts are on the cd in the right places for you to be able to boot the PC from it.

It's got lots and lots of stuff on it, including the WD diagnostic software.

You should run the long test on the drive before putting it into service, and I'm pretty sure there's a "write zeros to the drive" option as well in that WD software.

If not, post back after the drive passes the long test and I'll tell you how to do it the dangerous way from the command line with the

Hi unitron, it is starting to look like my backup is bad. I did everything you said above. I used MFSLive and ran the full test on the target drive and no errors. Then I zeroed the entire drive. All was fine. Then when I went to restore the backup to that drive it went as follows:

Restoring 747 of 812 MB
Cleaning up after restore. Please wait a moment.
Restore: Premature end of backup data.

I went back and tried recreating the backup. All seems to go well, but when I attempt the restore, same thing. Tried with another target drive that tested out perfectly and the same exact results. So I believe it all points to my source drive is corrupt and not capable of getting a backup from it.

So it sound like my only hope is if someone can make available an original image for TCD130040?

Hi unitron, it is starting to look like my backup is bad. I did everything you said above. I used MFSLive and ran the full test on the target drive and no errors. Then I zeroed the entire drive. All was fine. Then when I went to restore the backup to that drive it went as follows:

Restoring 747 of 812 MB
Cleaning up after restore. Please wait a moment.
Restore: Premature end of backup data.

I went back and tried recreating the backup. All seems to go well, but when I attempt the restore, same thing. Tried with another target drive that tested out perfectly and the same exact results. So I believe it all points to my source drive is corrupt and not capable of getting a backup from it.

So it sound like my only hope is if someone can make available an original image for TCD130040?

Thanks!,
-Bill

Although I'm fixing to PM somebody who had a 130 at one time to see if they can help, I don't right now know of a source for a 130/230 image other than finding a working machine at Goodwill or on Craigslist or paying weaKnees/DVRupgrade for the Instant Cake version.

If you could borrow a 1TB (or larger) drive from someone, you could try using

dd_rescue

or

ddrescue

to do a long slow copy of the current 1TB internal and see if you can get that working in the TiVo and then backup from it.

One thing to consider, obviously you're using an adapter to run that 1TB in an S2 (or you have the only IDE 1TB drive ever made).

I apologize, the drive in there was only 160GB and no adapter just stock PATA. As mentioned earlier, I have 4 TiVo's in my home all that I have upgraded over time and I thought they all had 1TB drives. I was mistaken, this one only had 160GB. So I guess the good news is that I should be able to try a ddrescue from the failing 160GB to my working 320GB? You mention dd_rescue or ddrescue. Which should I use and do you have any advice on options (I have not used these before)? Thank you again for all your help with this.